Coindesk reported that South Korea has become the latest country to shut off access to Polymarket over concerns that prediction markets amount to illegal gambling. <\/p>\n
What’s the scoop? <\/p>\n
The Block: South Korea’s Media and Communications Standards Commission voted Tuesday to block domestic access to Polymarket, concluding that its prediction markets facilitate illegal gambling. <\/p>\n
Polymarket’s Defense: Polymarket argued that it had removed Korean-language services, does not accept Korean won, and uses non-custodial smart contracts rather than directly holding customer funds. Regulators rejected that argument, citing Polymarket’s role in creating markets, setting trading rules, providing settlement infrastructure, and collecting fees. <\/p>\n
Enforcement Widens: The decision follows a review that began in July at the request of Korean police and gambling authorities. Police have also reportedly opened investigations into local Polymarket users over suspected illegal gambling. <\/p>\n
Zooming Out: South Korea now joins more than 30 jurisdictions restricting Polymarket, as governments grow increasingly hostile to prediction markets, treating them as gambling products instead of financial markets. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coindesk reported that South Korea has become the latest country to shut off access to Polymarket over concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31,25518,25520,33],"class_list":["post-123764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-korea","tag-polymarket","tag-prediction-markets","tag-south-korea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}